I'm loving Seattle so far! The only weird thing - obviously - is how much I haven't been spending any personal time on the internet. I've been working and getting used to this new job and spending a lot of time cleaning and setting up things in my apartment. I'd rather not have internet installed at the apartment yet - I want to get my financial bearing a little more secure before that. It's partly beneficial to not have the internet around because then you can't act on those impulse anxiety info searches/hanging out too long on social networks. I've been getting crap done at my apartment and going out and meeting new people, which is what I should mostly be doing. But it has been surprisingly hard to squish in some weekly sessions at a wifi cafe. I swurrr I'm not ditching MDA, but I'm obviously getting used to a new lifestyle and pace.

Oy vey, and can I just say I MISS you guys too? That's the extra weird thing about not having the internet. On the surface it seems good to spend minimal amounts of time on the internet, but I am missing my habit of visiting places like this daily. It's a weird shift, but I haven't forgotten or stopped rooting for everyone.

We miss you, too, but sometimes life just gets busy.
One neat side-effect of having internet friends is that when I hear news from around the world I often think of how it is impacting my friends who live there, or what they think of it. Of course, when there is a maniac, running around their city, shooting people, it does make you worry!

The apartment is slowly but surely coming together. I've added starches back in without any weird cravings or weight gain, so that's relieving. Welcome back to my life, potatoes! And lots of them. When I got off the extremely low-carb thing and didn't think about adding a lot back, I was only eating around 50 carbs a day. So now that I'm consciously trying to eat at least 100 carbs a day - as advised by the health person I respect most now, Stefani Ruper at Paleo for Women - I'm really eating a lot of potatoes and not gaining weight. In fact in the last week, since eating more carbs, I came down from 204 to 198. So yeah, the carbs are not evil, but there are better ones and there is something such as too much.

For the next month - hate to sound like I'm getting on another bandwagon - but I'm also going to try to eat more iodine. Not going overboard or buying supplements, but upon further observation, I haven't even been making the government recommendations of it. So I bought some yummy seaweed yesterday. I ate some ground liver in some sushi paper today and have a chicken broth boiling at home with wakame seaweed in it. Sardines tomorrow. Shrimp later in the week. And more and more seafood later on. Found an awesome Japanese market here with four whole sardines selling for $3 - HELLO. Yeah, so bit by bit, I'm gonna eat more seafood for more iodine.

In September I'll get decent health care again and can't wait to run some tests on myself so I have a more clear idea of what's going on with me.

And, ladies, if you haven't already, check out Paleo for Women! Mark referenced and admitted she was right on some important things in the women and fasting post this week.